QUEBEC - Former Quebec sovereigntist premier Bernard Landry has torn a strip off the interim leader of the NDP, accusing her of setting a bad example with her party-hopping ways.
He says that, for once, he agrees with English Canada.
The NDP's temporary leader, Nycole Turmel, has come under fire for her long-term membership in two pro-independence parties -- the Bloc Quebecois and Quebec solidaire.
She says she never supported Quebec independence and simply joined the parties out of support for certain policies or candidates.
But Landry expressed little sympathy for her Thursday and sided with her critics elsewhere in the country.
"It's rare that I agree with English Canada, but I think they've got a point here," Landry told The Canadian Press in an interview.
"There is a serious civic problem here. Participation in politics is not a joke, it's not a gag. There are (party) activists who devote a large chunk of their lives as citizens in defense of their convictions."
Turmel, who was named July 28 to replace Jack Layton while he undergoes treatment for an unidentified cancer, was barely into the job when she had to acknowledge she belonged to the Bloc and Quebec solidaire.
The longtime NDP activist says she quit the Bloc before running for the NDP and will also return her Quebec solidaire membership card.
She said she only joined the Bloc to support a friend and was never actually a sovereigntist, although she did strongly believe in the left-leaning convictions of the parties she joined.
Landry isn't impressed with her explanation. He says the whole affair sends a poor message about politics to young people.
"It's not edifying. It's a bad example for youth, it's an example of ingratitude toward those who are dedicated to political causes. At the very least, she could humbly apologize."
Landry has been a stalwart in several Parti Quebecois cabinets, dating back to 1976. He was later a finance minister and a senior cabinet member under Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard, in an era when the PQ came within a whisker of achieving Quebec independence.
Landry replaced Bouchard when he left politics in 2001, but lost the only election he ever ran in as premier, in 2003.
In his two years in office, he was known for blunt remarks that would sometimes land him in trouble.
But he successfully popularized the phrase "fiscal imbalance," and spearheaded the campaign to wrest multibillion-dollar transfers from Ottawa to the provinces. The Harper Tories later agreed with the existence of a federal-provincial fiscal imbalance, and made major transfers several years later.
Landry was also a vocal proponent of free trade in the 1980s, supporting the Mulroney Tories in their fight for more open borders.
